Full of rich period detail and complex characters, and set against an unforgettable backdrop, The Seeing Garden explores what it takes for a woman to discern her most authentic life.
Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Ginny Kubitz Moyer’s The Seeing Garden, which is out May 9th.
It’s 1910, and Catherine Ogden is aching to live a creative and meaningful life. That’s not easy to do when her aunt and uncle—and all of New York society—consider a good marriage to be the pinnacle of feminine achievement. But when Catherine visits Oakview, the Northern California estate of handsome bachelor William Brandt, she thinks that it might be possible to satisfy her family’s hopes as well as her own. In that beautiful place, she finds the promise of a new start and the opportunity to use her artistic gifts in designing the garden. But as Catherine is drawn into William’s hidden life, as well as the secrets of his estate staff, she discovers that Oakview holds both more opportunity and more risk than she ever imagined. It will take all her courage—and the lessons of some shocking revelations about the past—to choose the path that leads to real freedom.
New York City
1910
On the lush green lawn knelt a young mother, smiling and serene, beside her baby son. The mother wore a rust-colored dress and a halo. The child had a halo, too, and stood on his tiptoes in a way no real baby could possibly do. The mother’s left arm circled her son lightly in a gesture that promised freedom as well as shelter. Madonna of the Springtime, said the small plaque on the gilded frame.
Catherine was gazing at the painting when her aunt Abigail suddenly appeared at her side.
“I’ve just heard from Mrs. Anson,” she said in a low voice, “that William Brandt is coming to town. From California. He will be at the Crosbys’ ball next week.”
It took a moment for Catherine to register the words. She’d been standing as close to the painting as she could without attracting the attention of the other museumgoers, totally absorbed in her study of color and line. “I’m sorry,” she said to her aunt. “I didn’t hear. Who will be there?”
“William Brandt.”
Catherine smiled politely and turned back to the painting. Her aunt gave a barely audible sigh of exasperation, as she did every time Catherine showed a lack of interest in things other nineteen-year-old girls found important.
“It’s good we learned this when we did,” her aunt said, buttoning her coat. “I will telephone Madame Rainier and see if she can make you a new gown.”
“I thought I was going to wear the pink one.”
“That was before we knew who would be there,” said Abigail firmly. “Come. You can look at the paintings another day.”
After eleven years in her aunt’s house, Catherine knew it was pointless to resist. But she followed her with deliberate slowness, looking back over her shoulder until the last possible moment, taking the image of the sunlit field with her into the drizzly February streets.
#
William Brandt was a name needing no explanation to Catherine or anyone else in New York society. The thirty-year-old heir of a California railroad magnate, he had taken his father’s considerable fortune and increased it through shrewd investments and real estate sales. Among eligible bachelors, he was notable not only for the immensity of his wealth but also for the novelty of coming from a place few Easterners had ever seen: the San Francisco Peninsula, the long arm of land stretching south of the city between the bay and the ocean. He lived there on a country estate called Oakview, built by his father and said to be the prettiest one west of the Mississippi. It was rumored William had spent a small fortune enhancing what was already there, filling the home with artwork and making it the envy of the Peninsula elite. Though most New York matrons had a dim view of the West—all society was found in the East, as far as they were concerned—his prominence made them willing to rethink their old prejudices. After all, California was merely a few days’ travel by train, and he owned a private railroad car whose luxury they could only imagine.
And so for the next week, Madame Rainier was awake for twenty hours at a time, snapping at her assistants and moving irritably through bolts of colored silk as she created the gowns that had suddenly, for New York’s debutantes and their mothers, become very urgently needed.
#
After days of rain, Central Park was thronged with city dwellers eager for fresh air. As Catherine and her friend Lavinia Boscat strolled past the leafless trees, they had to step carefully out of the way of nursemaids pushing prams and children rolling wooden hoops. Undaunted by the crowds, they walked arm in arm, even though at five foot eight Catherine was nearly a head taller than her friend. “The goddess and the pixie,” Lavinia’s older brother had once christened them.
“Mama has been utterly undone by this news about William Brandt,” Lavinia said in a low voice. She glanced at her mother and her mother’s friend Mrs. Van Hare, who walked several feet ahead of the girls, intent on their own conversation. “An opportunity missed, she calls it. I actually heard her tell Father, ‘What a shame Lavinia just got engaged!’”
“Aunt Abigail is the same,” Catherine said, “but I don’t have a ring to protect me.” She took a deep breath, savoring the fragrance of a world washed clean by the rain. “How would you paint this smell?”
Lavinia, accustomed to such questions, obligingly took a deep breath. “Light green, with a hint of gray. Like that gown Edith had last season, remember?” She pulled off her left glove and polished her new diamond ring on her coat. “But you’re the artist. I defer to you.”
“I’m a pretty hopeless one,” Catherine said. “Yesterday I spent an hour sketching that bust of Apollo on the library mantel. When Mrs. Webb saw it, she said, ‘Oh, what a lovely portrait of your aunt!’”
“Oh, dear.” Lavinia didn’t even try to stifle her laugh. “What did you say?”
“I thanked her, of course. I couldn’t see a polite way to correct her. And if I had, it would only have exposed my lack of talent.” She grinned at her friend. “I do have some pride, you know.”
“Pride and manners before honesty,” said Lavinia with mock gravity. “That’s how it goes. That’s the code of the debutantes.”
“It’s the code of everyone, I think.” Catherine unintentionally clipped a pebble with her foot, and it bounced down the path. It was so satisfying to watch its trajectory that she kicked a second one, secure in the knowledge her aunt was not there to see it. “It has to be that way, I suppose. But sometimes . . .” Her parents’ faces came to mind. “Well, sometimes, don’t you wish it were different?”
“Perhaps it is different out West,” said Lavinia mischievously. “Perhaps Mr. William Brandt is a refreshingly, charmingly honest man and you’ll fall madly in love.” She held up her left hand and admired her diamond as it caught the light. “And then I could visit you in California! We could eat oranges and lie in the sun.”
“And fight grizzly bears,” said Catherine, “and look for gold.”
“I’m sure Mr. B. has plenty of that already.”
“Probably.” Catherine raised her eyes to the sky, which was bright blue with a few fat clouds adding texture. “Look how lovely that is. ‘I wandered lonely as a cloud.’ Remember reading that at the Academy?”
Lavinia grinned. “I take it back. You can’t move to California. Who would point out the beauties of nature to me?”
“Beauties of nature, my eye.” Catherine elbowed her friend. “All you care about is the beauty of your new ring.”
Lavinia laughed unabashedly. “Right you are, dear friend of my youth.” She took another fond glance at her diamond before putting her glove back on. “But truly, don’t you want to fall in love someday? I do recommend it.”
“Of course I do,” Catherine said. “But it’s like the beginning of Pride and Prejudice, isn’t it? A rich man comes to town, and suddenly everyone is in a dither. We shouldn’t even talk about love until we actually know William Brandt.”
“Like you know George, perhaps?”
Catherine flashed her a quick, conspiratorial smile. George Langley, a young cousin of Lavinia’s mother, had recently arrived in New York from Pittsburgh. Catherine had instinctively liked his dark-gold hair and wide grin and had been delighted to discover that he was a poet—he’d even had a few poems published in a magazine—who was just as likely to marvel over the clouds as she was. Their conversation shifted easily from lighthearted banter to more serious topics, a dynamic she found both comfortable and exciting. “I’ll say this, Vinia,” she admitted. “I like George very, very much indeed.”
Lavinia made a tut-tut sound. “Don’t say it too loudly. Remember that William Brandt is obscenely rich and you’re divinely beautiful. It’s a match made in heaven.”
“Another girl might catch his eye,” Catherine said.
Lavinia raised an eyebrow. “With you in the room?”
(c) 2023 Ginny Kubitz Moyer
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ginny Kubitz Moyer is a California native with a love of local history. A graduate of Pomona College and Stanford University, she’s an English teacher and avid weekend gardener, as well as the author of several books on spirituality, most recently Taste and See: Experiencing the Goodness of God with Our Five Senses (Loyola Press). She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband, two sons, and one rescue dog. The Seeing Garden is her first novel
